THE DAWN IN ENGLAND

of fraud/' and at the same time he gives detailed •
accounts of veridical communications he received.

Among the investigators was the celebrated mathe-
matician and philosopher. Professor De Morgan. He
gives some account of his experiences and conclusions
in his long and masterly preface to his wife's book,
" From Matter to Spirit/' 1863, as follows:

Ten years ago Mrs. Hayden, the well-known American
medium, came to my house alone. The sitting began imme-
diately after her arrival. Eight or nine persons of all ages,
and of all degrees of belief and unbelief in the whole thing
being imposture, were present. The raps began in the usual
way. They were to my ear clean, clear, faint sounds such
as would be said to ring^ had they lasted. I likened them
at the time to the noise which the ends of knitting-needles
would make, if dropped from a small distance upon a marble
slab, and instantly checked by a damper of some kind ;
and subsequent trial showed that my description was toler-
ably accurate. ... At a late period in the evening,
after nearly three hours .of experiment, Mrs. Hayden
having risen, and talking at another table while taking
refreshment, a child suddenly called out, " Will all the
spirits who have been here this evening rap together ?"
The words were no sooner uttered than a hailstorm of
knitting-needles was heard, crowded into certainly less
than two seconds ; .the big needle sounds of the men, and
the little ones of the women and children, being clearly
distinguishable, but perfectly disorderly in their arrival,

After a remark to the effect that for convenience
he intends to speak of the raps as coming from spirits,
Professor De Morgan goes on :

On being asked to put a question to the first spirit,
I begged that I might be allowed to put my question men-